A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

My ancestors were all Freethinkers, formerly Catholics. It was science and Darwin, in particular, that made them decide, as educated people, which they were, that the priest, nice as he was, didn't know what he was talking about.

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.

Somebody realized, hey, students are printing dummy ads and dummy news stories, why don't they really print something. So there was the Shortridge Daily Echo, and a hell of a lot of writers have come out of Shortridge on that account. The head writer of the I Love Lucy show, Madelyn Pugh, was a schoolmate of mine. Dan Wakefield. Writing was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

They were adored by the Germans, who thought they were exactly what Englishmen ought to be. They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun... They were dressed half for battle, half for tennis or croquet.